That startling message appeared last week on the online-donation site GoFundMe, next to a picture of an adorable yet sad-eyed Pit Bull.

Braveheart.

It’s a story of such breathtaking cruelty that we can hardly believe it. Last week, someone brought a Pit Bull into into the Murray County Animal Shelter in Chatsworth, Georgia, and walked out. Someone had slit the dog’s throat, a mean gash that exposed the trachea. The owner couldn’t afford to take the dog to the vet, so he or she dumped the dog at a shelter. He was quickly rescued by Cathy Roth of the Animal Rescue League Northwest Georgia and quickly taken to a vet hospital. The vet who later treated the dog said that the wound was two days old.

Braveheart had been walking around with his throat slit, his trachea exposed, for two days.

“It’s beyond horrifying to me,” Roth told CBS Atlanta News. “The trachea was exposed, and all the other structures were exposed.”

Who would do such a thing?

“The story I got when I picked him up from the shelter was the neighbors had been complaining that he barked so much; their belief is one of the neighbors slit his throat,” Roth told CBS News.

That’s right: Someone tried to silence a barking dog by murdering it — but Braveheart pulled through. While the wound was devastating, a gaping slash covering the width of his neck, the trachea remained whole. One day after surgery, Braveheart was “doing great and even jumping for a squeaky toy. He was also enjoying licking people,” according to CBS Atlanta News.

Braveheart is now in the safe hands of the Animal Rescue League of Northwest Georgia. Today Braveheart gets his stitches out, and once his recovery is complete, the group hopes to find a good home for him.

“Hopefully we can find the right person for him,” one of ARL’s caregivers posted on Justice for Braveheart Facebook. “I’m going to miss the big lug. I’ll keep everyone posted with info on his surgery. He should be just fine. He made it through the worst injury I have ever seen. This should be a piece of cake :)”

As for the neighbors who are rumored to have committed this brutal act, well, we got nothing. Despite a $1,500 reward offered by the ARL for information leading to an arrest, nobody seems to know anything. It’s a tired old tale — someone certainly knows something — but this case is even worse than you think: According to CBS Atlanta News, “Roth said she’s having difficulty finding a law enforcement agency that will investigate the case.” The cops won’t even get involved?

Here’s how you can: Visit the Justice for Braveheart Facebook to keep up to date on Braveheart’s ordeal; go here to make a donation for his continued care; and visit Braveheart’s GoFundMe page, where Monika Wesolowski is seeking donations to increase the reward money, in the hopes that someone will eventually talk.